


Can a Doll Dream of A Reaper Clad in Black?

by orphan_account



Category: Darker Than Black
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Contracts, Developing Relationship, Dolls, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, Existentialism, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Sex, Love, Love Confessions, Mild Smut, Minor Violence, Non-Graphic Violence, Protectiveness, Symbolism, True Love, Vacation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:40:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28461804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Yin and Hei on the run.Happy, in love.
Relationships: Hei & Yin (Darker Than Black), Hei/Yin
Kudos: 6





	1. Her Essence Brushes His Heart As His Lips Meet Hers...

**Author's Note:**

> BTW: Yin is capable of saying no. 
> 
> Before I get those comments.

The young girl clenched her fist as she waited for her protector to return. Her blue floral dress fell around her knees, as she suspended her feet in a large bowl of water. Her long silver hair typically tied up with a ribbon was left to lay on her back, grazing her chest and hips as she moved. 

_ Protector. Partner. Friend. Hei. Li. The Black Reaper. BK-201.  _

Yin didn’t understand the feelings she had for Hei, but she knew they weren’t typical of a doll. After a few minutes of watching Hei talk to the man selling ferry tickets, she decided to go to him. She stood up and stepped out from the water, instead reaching for the small bottle of water Hei left her as a backup. 

She walked through the hotel’s quiet hallways, keeping her spector at the bottom of the bottle. She knew there weren’t any contractors anywhere nearby, but Hei told her it never hurt to be careful. 

_ I listen to Hei so he can protect me. And I’ll protect him.  _

When she reached the lobby she saw the small friendly man who ran the hotel sitting at the desk. He looked up at her and smiled, then pointed to a hat on the counter. 

“If you’re looking for your husband, he went to the ferry pier. You can have that hat if you’d like, it’s always pretty sunny around here.” He reached for the hat and handed it to her, and she remembered when Kiko tried to teach her manners. 

She nodded and smiled at the man. “Thank you. I… appreciate it.” 

  
  
  
  


“Yin, I told you to stay in the room.” He looked at her with a soft expression, the type you’d typically expect from someone gently reprimanding a child. 

Yin shook her head, still staring at her feet. “We’re safe here. Please trust me.”

Hei looked at the small girl in front of him, her tiny fists clenched. He could tell she cared, that she wanted to stay here. 

He sighed, and took her hand in his. She relaxed it, and looked up at him. “I trust you. But you have to trust me too. I’ll make you a deal. You check out the area twice a day with your spector, and as long as it’s safe we can stay. But if you want to leave the room, ask me. I’ll take you outside if I’m there, and if I’m not just use your spector and I’ll come get you.”

She looked up at him and he saw the faintest smile creep onto her face. “Ok. It’s a deal.” 

She stepped forward and pressed her face against his chest, then wrapped her arms around him. He returned her embrace, and squeezed her tight. “I’m never gonna leave you. We’ll always be together. I promise, Yin.” 

“I know Hei. I know.”

  
  


After an enormous dinner, (at Yin’s request,) Hei and Yin returned to their room. When he closed the door behind them, she sat down on the bed next to the sliding glass window. 

Yin reached out to him as he walked over to her. He took her hand and sat down next to her. “Hei.”

Hei looked at Yin, confused at the unfamiliar and odd sound of her usually quiet and monotone voice. “What’s wrong Yin?”

She remembered Kiko fawning over the boys she had crushes on, remembered her spector in a glass of water watching Misaki’s face when Hei spoke to her, remembered Amber telling her about how they were both in love with Hei, remembered her mother and Mr. Kastinen. 

She looked at his face, and thought of the clear image of the man she could only see with her spector. The shadows and outlines she could see right now were enough to bring every feeling and thought she had for Hei to the front of her mind, even if she couldn’t see him how she wanted to. 

“I love you Hei. I want to be with you. I want to be yours.” She understood the implication, the real meaning of her words, even if she had no experience with romance. Hei was the first man whose hand she had ever held, and she had never kissed anyone. 

Hei brought his hand up to her face and rested his palm on her cheek. “I love you. I was so afraid to admit it for so long. After Bai, and Amber… I was so afraid to feel love again. Afraid to lose it. And when I realized I loved you, I saw how everyone treated you like because you were a doll you didn’t have feelings… you didn’t matter. But you do. You have feelings. You matter. To me more than anyone.”

She smiled wider than he had ever seen before, and her eyes began to water. 

Hei smiled at her. “But if you’re gonna be mine, I want to be yours.” She nodded, and he brushed his thumb against the corner of her eye, wiping her tear away. “Can I… kiss you?”

She nodded, then frowned. “I don’t know. How.”

He chuckled at that. “Close your eyes.”

She did, and he slowly leaned in. He gently pressed his lips against hers, as she laid her hand on his chest. He moved his hand from her face to her hair and began to stroke it as he kissed her. 

When he pulled away, she grabbed onto him and pulled him close to her. “Stay.”

She didn’t need to say more. He held her tighter and laid down on the bed, positioning himself so her head could rest on his chest. 

“Always, Yin.  _ Always _ **.”**


	2. She Breathes Him In, On the Cold Sea Floor...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yin and Hei spend the day at the beach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna be updating alot more frequently. Hope y'all like this chapter.

When Hei woke up he slowly opened his eyes and noticed Yin sitting up, her hand resting in a glass of water. “There’s a couple at the beach,” she commented, in the same monotone voice Hei had grown accustomed to. 

“What’s wrong? Are they a threat?” Hei gently asked. 

Yin shook her head and turned to look at the balcony. “No. But… they’re having fun. I want to do something fun.”

Hei smiled, grabbed her hand and pulled her to stand in front of him. She looked up at him and placed her hand on his chest, and when he rested his free hand on her back he leaned forward to kiss her. 

“Here’s the deal. We can go hang out at the beach for a few hours, I can teach you how to build with sand and we can swim together. But we can only do it if we can go to a nice dinner afterwards.” Hei beamed at her when she smiled and stood up. 

Hei’s behavior and demeanor with her was surprisingly similar to how he was as Li, although that was partially acting. But he would never act for her, partly because he wanted to be honest with her, and partly because she’d immediately see through it. 

When they reached the beach they stepped into the water and Hei went forward a bit to show her how he swam and went under the waves. She looked through her spector and moved it around the surface and the sea floor, watching him. 

_Protector. Lover. Partner. Friend. Hei. Li. The Black Reaper. BK-201._

“Do you want to go farther in Yin?” Hei asked. “I have an idea. Get on my back.”

She walked over to him as he turned around. She wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed her small fragile legs around his chest. He slid his arms to rest under her knees and began walking into the deeper waters. 

When the water reached his chest, she squeezed her arms around his neck tighter and he laughed, then lifted one of his legs up to stand on one leg. Yin started shaking her head and when a wave approached he put it back down, only for a strong current to hit with the wave. He was swept under the water and he tried to hold onto the small girl on his back, only to hit the seafloor and have her pulled away by the current. 

“Yi-“ His words were cut off by the suffocating grasp of water in his mouth and throat. He forced his eyes open, desperately searching for her. When he saw her flailing around in the water near him, he swam over to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, then pulled her up to the surface. They hadn’t been swept much further out, but they were pulled far enough to scare Yin. He pulled her up and held her in his arms, as she grabbed onto his shirt.

He wasn’t conscious of walking back to the beach, and it wasn’t until he felt the warm dry sand under his feet that he was able to focus on anything but the small girl in his arms. When he placed her down on the sand and sat next to her, he looked out at the sea while she reached for his hand.

He could feel her heartbeat, the electricity in her body, the same way he did when he touched a TV, or a car, or a phone. When he could feel her heartbeat slow, hear her breathing return to normal, he finally spoke. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

She turned to him and nodded. “That’s the first time I’ve ever been underwater. It felt… new.” 

He turned to her and realized just how different her life had been. Even before she became a doll, before the gates, she was blind. Her whole life she was coddled and shielded from the world, only to become a doll at ten years old. She went from a child constantly infantilized to a doll that people treated like a tool.

He wondered just how much of the girl Yin was born from still remained, and what role he had in the girl she became. He was aware it wasn’t just him. Mao, Huang, Mr. Kastinen, Kiko, Amber, all of them had a profound impact on her.

But Hei believed, Hei _knew_ that it wasn’t just that. Yin was who she was because of her. He had no doubt that had she not encountered these influences, she still would have grown and become an amazing person. 

And no matter what anyone said, she _WAS_ a person. Not a tool, not just a doll, or a medium, or an extension of whoever she was around. Yin was Yin, and as long as she was with him he would never let her forget that she was herself, and she could be happy.

Hei thought for a moment, then smiled at her. “Tell me something I didn’t know about you, and I’ll do the same. We can take turns.”

Yin smiled at her feet, the soft sand clinging to her smooth, flawless skin. “My favorite color is blue.”

Such a simple statement, something you’d expect from the average person, but something that surprised Hei. It made sense when he thought about it for a moment though. The sea, her dress, her spector. 

Hei paused for a moment, searching for a detail he thought would interest her. 

“I’ve never drank alcohol.”

She turned to him and he thought if she knew how to, her face would show faint surprise. “Why?”

“Training. Bai and I left home when she was nine and I was twelve. We got picked up by the Syndicate almost a year later. They taught us how to pretend to drink to fit in during social situations, but our orders were strict to never actually drink it. I guess being drunk would make you more likely to blow your cover”

Hei also saw no purpose in trying to drink alcohol, even by himself. The only thought he had ever given it was when he had to use alcohol to lure in a target.

He turned to Yin, and when she felt his eyes on her, she remembered she had to go as well. “When I was young, cats were my favorite animal. Quiet, but they saw alot. I was like that too. Then I became a doll.”

“When I met Mao… I was happy. I had a cat and a friend. In one person.”

Hei remembered the way she used to hold and pet Mao. Looking back on it, even that action, small and natural as it was, was proof of her independence from the beginning. According to Huang, Yin had no programming beyond what was required for her to live, and using her spector.

But larger actions that violated her programming were what they noticed. They noticed her running away, but they didn’t notice her interactions with Mao, or when she brushed a cherry blossom off her cheek. 

The memories of Mao quickly turned to a dull ache in his heart. Yin told him that Mao’s star hadn’t fallen after the attack on Hell’s Gate, but Hei couldn’t help but wonder if Mao’s mind would forever be lost in the network. He had gone feral when they last saw him, but it was unclear if he left the cat’s body. If he had… he was lost to the world. 

There was the possibility that he remained in his body, and if he managed to make it out of the Gate he might still be alive. But Hei didn’t want to think about that now.

They went back and forth opening themselves up to each other. Each minute detail made them closer and closer. And it was mutually beneficial. Yin was learning to vocalize things, and Hei was learning to open up to her. Was it anyone else, he may have sat in silence with them. But she made him want to open up. Be vulnerable.

When the sun began to set Hei brought her to the most shallow part of the water so she could watch it with him. Her spector sat on the water, moving with the waves, quiet and still as her and Hei, as she watched the sunset for the first time.

Maybe people would infantilize her for the rest of her life. Maybe she could never see through her eyes like Hei did. Maybe dolls weren’t real humans, maybe Hei was a weirdo for loving her. Maybe she was a defective doll like others said.

But that didn’t matter. Because in that moment she thought about contractors and dolls, and she wondered if she was a contractor. Was her price for this moment to be a doll, was her payment for Hei’s love being looked down on her whole life...

And that's when she realized it didn’t matter to her what she was. Contractor, doll, human, Kirsi, Yin, evolving or defective...

She was with him. And she didn’t care what she had to be to keep it that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter has very mild sexual content, but if that's a thing you aren't comfortable reading that then I would recommend you avoid that.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this!


	3. And as the Moon Grows Full, He Cries Out.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hei notices something about Yin...
> 
> CW: Incredibly incredibly incredibly vague and mild sexual content

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't know how to write a scene like this for a show like Darker than Black or for Yin and Hei, but this feels fairly Darker than Black

He first noticed it after dinner the day they went to the beach together. He had always been taught that doll’s physical reactions were limited to what their programming allowed, and he was sure her programming didn’t involve this. 

But he was so familiar with her. He knew her like he never knew anyone, so he couldn’t deny what he saw. It started with her skin. They were kissing, and it was a new sort of intensity. Consistent and prolonged, no hesitation, no pause. 

When he felt her skin growing warm he was sure it was just because he was holding her so close. It wasn’t until her cheeks flushed a faint pink and her breath picked up that he understood the meaning. 

She wanted him. In what ways he wasn’t sure, but he realized that emotional affection and a few chaste kisses wasn’t enough. 

The second time was the following night. 

When he woke up and kissed her, she held him in place, keeping him from moving. When he felt her breath catch, and heard the tiniest whimper slip from her lips, he pulled back. 

He wasn’t exactly sure how to address it, but he needed to. Now. “Can we talk about something?” 

She nodded, and he continued, awkwardly stumbling through his words. 

“Do you… have an interest in doing more? Physically, I mean, uh, I mean I’m fine if you aren’t… but I need to know. And I need to know that you’d tell me if you were uncomfortable.” 

She nodded. “Yes. I am. And I will tell you.”

Dolls had minimal instincts, but the instinct that was most suppressed was the instinct to react to physical and emotional sensation. But dolls, especially Yin, didn’t have the interpersonal discomfort you’d expect from a human when talking about something human society considers embarrassing or taboo. 

There was no shyness. He remembered one time Yin located a target naked with an escort in his shower, and she didn’t seem at all uncomfortable stating what she saw. Hei ended up throwing his cord through the window and shocking the water in the tub, instead of suffering the uncomfortable sight of a 53 year old mafia boss in the shower. 

Because Hei was human. Mostly. 

So when Yin told him she wanted to be with him,  _ like that,  _ he thought he might just die. He was split between two conflicting desires. He wanted to give her everything he had, close every gap between them. But he was so afraid to hurt Yin, so afraid to push her even a tiny bit further than she wanted.

But he trusted her. He knew she would make it known if he went too far. And she was strong. If she said she could handle something, he knew she could. And between the two of them, she was the brave one.

And in that moment everything fell away. She wasn’t a doll, he wasn’t a contractor, they were together, one, uninterrupted by the harsh cold world just beyond the door. He gave her what he could never give before, a part of himself he had never been able to let someone see. In the dark cold room, he kept her warm, and in that moment he could feel the moon’s light, it’s guiding presence. For the first night since that night ten years ago when the Gates first appeared in their world, he remembered the safety he felt before the moon disappeared.

That night he felt time stop. He knew it wasn’t true, but he wanted to believe, just for a moment, that maybe it did. And in the morning he wondered if Amber was happy for them, if this was the future she hoped for, she fought for, sacrificed everything for. 

And even though he knew Amber was gone, even though he didn’t return her feelings, he imagined that she did stop time for him, freezing that moment for him, so a part of him would always be there. One final gift, one final moment of moonlight for Hei and Yin.

It was at least a nice thought. A daydream. Maybe the only dream the contractor could have.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be up soon


	4. The World as He Saw It, Through a Doll's Misty Eyes...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yin's spector can see everything. Yin can see everything.
> 
> And Hei finally can too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is alot less straightforward than the other chapters, more based on imagery and vague poetic tropes. Hope you enjoy it!

She stood on the edge of the beach, where the waves brushed her skin just enough for her to send her spector out into the water. Yin had learned to control it enough that guiding it was fluid, and the ocean was never ending.

When she worked with the Syndicate, her observation was limited to faucets and puddles. Fragments of a larger painting. Hei was the first person ever to show her the ocean, after their first recon job in Tokyo. He was the first one to note the ocean’s potential for her, and when she stepped in for the first time she could see everything around her. The entire painting came into view, and she could walk through the museum.

The ocean was limitless. No dry spots her spector couldn’t occupy, no rooftops blocking the sky, and buildings in the way of her view. The stars were a painting above her, inked onto the sky, a museum just for her. Her blindness was irrelevant. 

Memorizing Hei, every mark and muscle and scar and vein and bruise and imperfection was etched into her memory, conjured to the front of her mind when all her magenta eyes saw of him was colors and shadows, blurred and dimmed almost to darkness.

“Hei.”

For the first time in 21 years, she saw for herself. Not a blind child locked in the house, not the Syndicate’s eyes looking for a target, nothing but her. She was looking for her, she opened her eyes for her, and her favorite thing to look at was him.

He sat behind her in swim trunks, holding her hand as she looked down at the water. 

“I love you.”

The stars he watched with his sister were gone. The stars he watched fall while he slept in his arms, the stars he watched fall sitting next to Amber, the star he watched disappear in Hell’s Gate. All of them were gone, and he couldn’t remember what watching them felt like.

But when he looked at the girl standing still in the water next to him, and thought of what he had with her. It wasn’t her words, or her body, or her sight. The safety he felt in this moment, that he hadn’t felt since stargazing with Pai the night before the Gates appeared, was worth more than the stars ever had been.

It wasn’t stars. It was love, comfort, companionship. 

She sat in his lap and laid her head on his shoulder. 

He would see their faces again soon. Mao, Nick, Amber, Pai. The ones he could meet again, he hoped he would. The ones lost in the Gate.

He kissed her neck while she hummed to him.

November. Havoc. Bertha. Itzasa. Huang. Amigiri. Shihiko. Alma. Maki. Wei. Alice. The dead.

He fell back into the water and laughed as he relaxed into the soft wet sand, and as she sat on his lap and looked to the sky.

He’d wake up and see their faces, and shake and sweat.

They were vulnerable there, in a position they’d never be in a year ago when taking a walk was a safety risk.

But she’d be there. To hold him, bring him back. He’d see her, know her, come back to the world.

She kissed him and when he closed his eyes he saw through her. He saw what she did, what her spector did, and he loved it. It was new, and beautiful.

Can a Black Reaper dream of the doll in his arms?

Probably not.

But Hei could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is hurt/comfort.
> 
> Let me know how you like this!


	5. The Black Reaper Dreams of a Doll Lost in the Tokyo Lights...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hei has a nightmare. Yin is there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the idea of Yin spending free time during season 1 researching anxiety and PTSD and how to help Hei.

_ It was cold. That was the first sensation he registered. _

  


_ When he saw the blinding white light and heard a heart monitor, he knew he was in a hospital. _

  


_ Yin. _

  


_ The last thing he saw before the light engulfed the Gate was Yin. _

  


_ He tried to scream, but his voice was gone to him. _

  


_ Shapes entered his vision, and when his eyes adjusted he saw doctors, translucent and misty. _

  


_ He couldn’t save her. She’s gone. He’ll be here for life. Tokyo is destroyed. Just like South America. His sister. Doll. Just. Just a doll. _

  


_ The noise overwhelmed him as the doctor’s melted into the spectors he saw in Hell’s Gate, surrounding him.  _

  


_ The noise came together to mimic Yin’s. _

  


_ Why didn’t you save me? Why did you leave me all alone? Did I do something wrong? _

  


He woke up to Yin’s arms around him, holding him up as he came back.

  


His subconscious had learned years ago not to scream during nightmares, since being found would guarantee his death, but Yin learned how to tell when he was about to wake up from a nightmare. 

  


“It’s okay. Hei.”

  


At the sound of her voice he turned to her, and seeing her face, her alive, with him, brought him down to Earth. 

  


“You were gone. The Gate was gone. I lost you. I thought I lost you.”

  


She tightened her embrace and laid her head on his chest. “I’m here. I’ll never leave you Hei. You won’t lose me.”

  


He wrapped his arms around her small body and held her to his chest.

  


“Yin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts?

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! More soon.


End file.
